Thanatos Picture

This is another conceptual drawing for my character Thanatos Nox, the Angel of Death. At least, this is my take on the character. My inspiration for the character himself is heavily drawn from the written work The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which I would highly recommend. In this work Death is the narrator, and since reading it I have wanted to create my own interpretation. I also drew inspiration from both Greek and Norse mythology.

The Greek is seen both in the name, for Thanatos was the Greek god of death and half brother or cousin(?) to Hypnos, the god of sleep. Also simply in the clothing style I chose for this image. The Norse inspiration came for the half alive, half skeleton form, for those that may know a thing or two about Norse mythology may recognize this as a description for Hel, the daughter of Loki. (She was the Norse goddess of the underworld and where our world 'Hell' came from.)

Also, I want to add why I choose to draw this the way I did. I admit, trying to make a human figure for death is pretty crazy and weird, so I am just making this for my own entertainment purposes. Thanatos in the Greek sense is typically portrayed as a youth, though I choose to draw him looking a little older. I still wanted his age to not be completely clear. Same with gender. I have personally always viewed the figure of death or the 'grim reaper' as male, though this character I wanted to appear androgynous, hence the way I have drawn him. Death should be ageless and genderless, in my opinion. But that is my opinion, so hopefully I am not stepping on any toes.

Anyway, though this is conceptual, I am posting it as a deviantion rather than a scrap as I did my first concept drawings of this character. I put a little more effort into this one. I am still not settled on a final idea, though.

(Yes, I know the anatomy is off and terrible and blah blah blah. I don't care. I spent like...an hour and a half on this? Maybe less. It's conceptual. So there.)